


age twelve, last seen on his way home from school

by anyder



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: FFxivWrite, FFxivWrite 2020, Gen, Missing Scene, Pre-Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:20:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26247820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anyder/pseuds/anyder
Summary: Entry for FFXIVWrite 2020, under the prompt "Crux"."You'll make a scene, Emet-Selch," says the man on the bench. "Scowling like this all by your lonesome."Emet-Selch puckers his lips then purses them tight. His hands are fists in his lap--but he manages to smooth them out, spreading his fingers over his thighs. He shuts his eyes. One great breath in, one great breath out. His fingers twitch. One great breath in... "What is it, Elidibus?" Oh, softly, this time. These are but the cinders of that very first campfire, when he opens his eyes again. "This is far sooner than we had agreed."Elidibus doesn't answer right away. Instead, he's just quiet, just still. Aha, thinks Emet-Selch. A tick of remorse. But then Elidibus only says, "Duty calls."
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	age twelve, last seen on his way home from school

**Author's Note:**

> this shouldn't really contain any spoilers that could be parsed without prior knowledge of the context!  
> later edit: we now have a side story that has completely nuked this as a premise, but you know what? I'M GLAD, i love what canon gave us. lmao

It should be five of them on their way home. They should all be going together. They are, after all, schoolchildren, and though these streets are safe, none of them ought to be wheeling about on their own.

Agathie had told the other children that it was, therefore, _just fine,_ because she would not be wheeling about on her own. She would be doing so with Albery. He ducked his head when she said that, and he was probably blushing; when he did that, the other children were charmed by it and they laughed, and then they felt all right leaving. Now Agathie and Albery are on the cobbled street together--separate from their friends, together--and Albery has kept his chin down toward his chest.

"Are you all right?" Agathie asks.

Albery looks up at her. This is actually against the rules, breaking away from the group like this. All five of them were expressly told not to do that, and Albery wasn't sure that the other three would accept it with such ease. It does not, however, surprise him that Agathie broke rank in the first place. She's quite willing to shirk a rule if it will benefit her loved ones, and that is why Albery spends time with her. He appreciated the quality. He wants to appreciate it again. Earnestly, he does want that. What's more, Agathie speaks well and she spends more time reading than she does causing trouble. She has also come to learn when he's got a burgeoning headache, and that it means she should leave him alone. Their names together, too, have an idiotic sort of rhythm that would keep any neighbors feeling charmed: _Agathie and Albery._ If she's still partial to him in ten years or so, he could see about marrying her.

"Yes," he says. "Why? Have I done something?"

She frowns at him, impertinent, and Albery thinks uncharitably about the way it digs into her chin. Whatever this is, he knows right away it isn't something he feels like hearing from her, and he has the sour regret of entertaining that he could marry her in ten years or so at all. It's only a frown on her face, no great transgression, but it feels like more than that. He's just... "You look tired," Agathie says.

Yes, he's that.

"And you've a queer look over your eyes," she continues. "Not just today, or I wouldn't say anything about it. I didn't say anything the _first_ day you did. Nor the second, nor..."

"And so on," he says.

"And so on," she confirms. She does it angrily; he's condescending to her right now and she bristles at it. He really must be tired. Usually he's sweeter. She reminds herself of that-- _usually, he's sweeter_ \--and just breathes for another moment. Then she says, "Your mum really worries."

"Does she!" says Albery. Agathie actually jumps. He realizes how long it's been since he has snapped like that, with a lemon-rind twist of his mouth, a shocking topping for a cake. Usually, he is sweeter than he's being now. He purses his lips. "I know she does." Like he did before, when he might have been blushing, he ducks his head. "You do, too."

It only takes that much to melt her. She's still so young, herself comprised of little more than spun sugar, and but a moment in the pan has her softened up completely. "I do." Her hands are twisting together in front of her, fingers all taut and worried. "For days, Albery, you've looked so different. So tired. And always after school, and always when we come this way. I _do_ worry, and I just..."

Albery looks at her face (plain, pinched, but pleasant) and her fingers (the way she squeezes them pale). Then he sweeps his eyes left, well beyond her. Yes, he must have a queer look over them. "I know. I know, I know." He reaches out to take the clench of her hands in both of his own, though he's still looking far away. "Forgive me, Agathie. I am sorry for..."

"You don't need to be."

He squeezes her hands. "I'm sorry," he insists. Then he looks into her face, and smiles at her. "All right?"

She looks at him with her mouth open, with her eyes wide open. She didn't expect this. Her fingers are unwinding; all that spun sugar, back in his pan, she's quick again to soften. She is young enough that she doesn't know the dread of forever parting. "All right," she says.

"I'll catch up soon. I want to think a bit, but I'll catch up to you soon. If you hurry, you'll make it to the others before everyone gets home."

"Albery--"

"If you're quick," he says.

Agathie doesn't know the dread of forever parting, so she's heartened by his hands and words and smile. She's encouraged; she thinks it's going to be just fine. "If you're quick too," she tells him, "they won't get any funny ideas before you meet up with us again."

Albery laughs and lets go of her hands. "See you, Agathie."

"See you."

It's a pity, he thinks, because in ten years or so, they could have done well enough together. Instead he's got a headache on the horizon. He doesn't watch her leave. He goes instead to that place to the left he was looking at before. The bench over here is where Albery has seen this man sitting each and every day for the past sennight. Albery sits down next to him, and his shiny shoes brush against the ground.

"You go elsewhere during the day, I trust. And during the nighttime too, surely." He folds his hands in his lap and looks ahead of himself.

"This is the time of day when you come by," says the man.

Albery grimaces. _That isn't what I asked._ It's a little thing, but it grates at him terribly. This does grate at him _terribly._ "So it is. I come this way from school, to home. My parents are waiting for me. Both of them. Father does much of his work at home, and Mother reads and sews. She'd tell you she keeps house, but she just reads and sews." He frowns. He keeps the frown from trembling. "It is a quiet house. 'Twill be less quiet if I am very late."

"They will be bothered," agrees the man.

The frown does tremble, now, and Albery is quick to tighten his jaw instead. He turns sharply to the man beside him. His hands are fists in his lap and his eyes are as bright and old as the concept of campfire. "This is far sooner than I would have liked to see you--far sooner than we had _agreed,_ if I am not mis _ta_ ken." He's hissing. It's the same as steam, this hiss, and it could equally boil a man alive. "I hear the news, you know. Even here in Sharlayan, my little ears pick up the murmurs. So I presume you have not come to tell me that I played my part to anything less than _bountiful_ results. I have sown field upon _field_ of good harvest that you may reap for generations." This young face of his turns red far too easily; the hue of it right now is brilliant. A schoolboy's mouth should not contort with the weight and the flavor of such an old fury.

"You'll make a scene, Emet-Selch," says the man on the bench. "Scowling like this all by your lonesome."

Emet-Selch puckers his lips then purses them tight. His hands are fists in his lap--but he manages to smooth them out, spreading his fingers over his thighs. He shuts his eyes. One great breath in, one great breath out. His fingers twitch. One great breath in... "What is it, Elidibus?" Oh, softly, this time. These are but the cinders of that very first campfire, when he opens his eyes again. "This is far sooner than we had agreed."

Elidibus doesn't answer right away. Instead, he's just quiet, just still. _Aha,_ thinks Emet-Selch. _A tick of remorse._ But then Elidibus only says, "Duty calls."

Here is the headache; here's that horizon. Here is the sun slipping past it. Here is the sun going down. "That bad already?" Emet-Selch asks. He halts, then laughs--he laughs so boyishly. "I'd sown field upon field. I provided a bounty _and then some_. My retirement fund, Elidibus. I have yet to dip into it at all. The wars I have waged for our great cause will not be dwindling so soon."

An age upon an age ago, no Amaurotine would have remained unmoved. Anyone would look at Emet-Selch, even in this small, spry body, and see the aching of his back, his legs; they would see the exhaustion bowing his shoulders and spine. An age upon an age ago, when Elidibus was more boy than heart, he would have looked up at Emet-Selch and _seen_ all of it. He would have felt something. He would have budged, at least. If he sees any of it now, its weight doesn't move him an ilm. "Are you tired of war?" he asks.

Emet-Selch squints toward the sky. He says faintly, "Too much of a good thing..."

Once more, Elidibus is just quiet, just still. This time it's because Emet-Selch has displeased him. (That does make Emet-Selch smile, a touch into his cheek.) "These are other fields," he explains. "Other crops. Other seeds. You are the deftest gardener remaining to us."

So there it is. Plans botched by one of the Sundered, and Emet-Selch's reprieve is the collateral. "Aren't I just!" he sighs. He looks down at his hands--these little hands, with a bit of ink on the heel of his palm from all his writing at school. "There goes my mummy's poor heart." Her son had died a little while ago, a sudden incident of drowning, and Emet-Selch snatched him up right away; therefore her son had miraculously survived. The parents are both protective, and this will ravage their household. What a nice household, too. Old money. "'Twas a pleasant thing," he says, looking down at these little hands. "I should have liked a smidgen more of it. Oh, you really need not have lurked the way you did; from the first, I knew you had come to collect me. As soon as I saw you, I knew that. I was only drawing it out, myself." No point in looking down at these little hands. They're not for him, not anymore. "Who was it, I wonder, that suggested the righteous need no rest? Someone daft, that's all I know." It's window dressing for his weariness. He gilds it, makes it gleam, then sets it up for display. But now, sitting here in Sharlayan--where he will be a missing boy, an unsolved mystery--he hasn't the strength to keep polishing it. He wants to draw the curtain. "Must I?" he asks softly. And he regrets doing that.

He wonders whether Elidibus recalls what it is like to be _moved._

"We need you, Emet-Selch," Elidibus says. He rises from the bench. He will leave, and Emet-Selch will leave with him. Poor Albery will be the talk of the neighborhood; he will serve to warn young children. Agathie will never forgive herself for leaving him alone. Well, that's the sort of world this is. "Our harvest. Our seeds. Without you, we will starve." Elidibus takes the metaphor too far; worse yet, he means it to the fullest. He means it purely as reality. Worst of _all,_ he's right.

Emet-Selch watches the Emissary's mouth. Such a smooth, sure thing. So certain of the things it says. He looks at the Emissary's mask, the high honor of it. The lauded color of it. Now he wishes to look no longer, so he shuts his eyes and sinks against the back of the bench. Elidibus will leave, and Emet-Selch will leave with him, but he will wring just one more moment out of this paltry life. He will be Albery for another breath or two.

He tilts back his head, and he can feel the sun over his face. The warmth of it. Could put him to sleep; could burn him across his cheeks. Too much of a good thing.

"I know," he says. 


End file.
